Suburb Balks At Incinerator Profit Split

December 04, 1987|By Rob Karwath.

Summit`s village attorney said Thursday that the southwest suburb doesn`t want to split the profits from a proposed trash incinerator with the Metropolitan Sanitary District, which owns the land for the project and has proposed the profit-sharing.

``Half-half is not going to work,`` Vincent Cainkar, the attorney, said.

Cainkar said the $200 million incinerator, which would burn about 2,000 tons of trash a day, ``will have more effect on the village. The people there are the ones affected.``

At Thursday`s district board meeting, however, several board members said the district shouldn`t lease the 41 acres along the Sanitary & Ship Canal to Summit for the incinerator unless the district gets half the profits.

``If the village earns $1 million, I think the constituents of the district should benefit close to that,`` board member Nancy Drew Sheehan said. Board members and village officials will meet Dec. 8 to try to agree on a compensation formula. Summit officials want to lease the 41 acres, then sublease the land to a trash-disposal company that would build and operate the incinerator.

Since July, the dispute between the village and the district over sharing the incinerator`s profits has threatened to scuttle it.

Summit has discussed letting Waste Management of Illinois Inc. build the incinerator. But district officials have said the plan poses problems because of a state law prohibiting the district from doing business directly or indirectly with companies whose officials have been convicted of bribing public officials within five years. Twice since 1986, officials of Waste Management or its subsidiaries have been convicted of bribery or charges related to alleged bribes.

The law provides an exception, if doing business with such companies is in the district`s ``best interests.`` To meet that requirement, district officials and Summit officials have negotiated about what money or services the village, or the company operating the incinerator, would provide to the district.

Cainkar said Summit hasn`t committed to building the incinerator with Waste Management. Village officials first talked to the Oak Brook company because it is the world`s largest trash-disposal company and ``they have a good name in the business,`` Cainkar said.

But Sheehan said that in addition to its Waste Management concerns, the district has taken a firm stand on sharing the profits because ``we are in a good negotiating position.``

If it receives the necessary approvals from local and state officials-and, perhaps, from federal agencies monitoring the cleanliness of the Chicago area`s air-the incinerator would become the third already operating or approved for construction in Cook County.

Also Thursday, the district approved contributing $450,000 to the construction of a $13 million man-made lake in Arlington Heights designed to protect 52 homes in the northwest suburb and nearby Prospect Heights from flooding.

The decision to finance the project, nicknamed ``Lake Arlington,`` came after more than a decade of lobbying by Arlington Heights.

The village had sought $900,000 from the district, citing its flood-control responsibilities in Cook County. But Village President James Ryan said he was ``90 percent happy`` with the district`s offer.

``If I could go out and start digging today, I would,`` he said.

The lake will be dug on about 90 acres northeast of Palatine Road and Windsor Drive in Arlington Heights. It will take runoff from nearby McDonald Creek in heavy rains, protecting the homes, many of which were damaged in last summer`s flooding.

District officials also approved seeking bids for construction of the next leg of the $3.8 billion Deep Tunnel pollution- and flood-control project in the western suburbs. Officials expect to open bids in March for the $154 million job, the digging of about 7 miles of tunnel under and along the Des Plaines River from North Riverside to McCook.